Nøgne Ø Special Holiday Ale

I have to admit having gotten a wee bit nervous when the Nøgne Ø website suddenly was replaced by one of those "domain owned by" sites. But, after a couple of weeks, the site is back up, no updates, no explanation, and, well, I'm not going to ask, I'm just happy it's back.

Well, as I ended up with far more Christmas Beer than any good Hindu ought to have, it's taken a while to whittle the seasonal collection down to just this last one, Nøgne Ø Special Holiday Ale. The SHA was conceived in 2008 as a sort of "joint" brew between Stone Brewing Co. and Jolly Pumpkin, the idea being to design a beer with each brewery coming up with a "special" ingredient local to each brewery. From Michigan's Jolly Pumpkin came chestnuts, from California's Stone Brewing came white sage, and from the Ø, juniper berries.

So, if I'm understanding everything correctly (let's say there's a 50:50 chance), each brewery went back with the master plan, and thus three separate batches were (or are) being made. Nøgne Ø's version, the second batch, seems to have only just arrived in the U.S. in the late fall (Kjetil seemed genuinely surprised that I'd already had this in my hands back in November.) Indeed, I have already tried this, though in a far more, um, shall we say festive setting. I only remember that it was good, very very good actually, but not much more. Onwards then.

To recap, malted barley, rye and oats, hops, white sage, carroway, juniper berries and chestnuts. 22° Plato, 50IBUs, 8.5% abv. Nose reminds me of gingerbeer in a saged clay slurry. Soft, thick texture, like a yoohoo, very chewy, creamy without tasting creamy. It's an odd sensation. Definite juniper and sage character, surprisingly dry, mildly malty, slate, but dry, and nice acidity and nutty/baking spice on the finish. The mouthfeel is unusual, the whole package together is intriguing. Couldn't drink lots of this, or regular quantities, I think, but mostly because of the texture - it feels more powerful than it really is.


The above image shows the Stone Brewing release. Their blog has a very detailed description of how this beer came to be. Well worth reading. Jolly Pumpkin's doesn't seem to have been released yet, no idea the status on that.